Eric Gordon

[We’ve got the Trade Deadline Podcast up! Slim and I react to all this hooblah as this post continues to be updated – you can find the Pod the post below this one as well as that link.]

Razzball Nation!

The Trade Deadline is nigh, which is to say, soon. Can I trade the start of this open with a different one…? “Did you hear the one about how the Hawks got nothing for the broke ass of Josh Smith last trade deadline?!” Imagine the Hawks with a lottery pick as well… I guess as fortune-tellers, they knew they didn’t need anything for Smoove!

The 2015 NBA Trade Deadline will pass at 3:00 PM EST, and up until the closing moments, I’ll be updating this post as each trade moves across my virtual news desk. Fantasy spins galore! That’s the younger sister of Pussy Galore… So be sure to constantly ping that refresh like Goldfinger on Kitco! Here’s what’s gone down so far:

Basketball is back baby! The NBA season returns from the All-Star Break tonight after four-and-a-half months off… Maybe hyperbolic, but certainly feels that way!

And right as games start, we’ve got the NBA Trade Deadline passing this afternoon at 3:00 PM EST. That was fast! We’ve got a big day of trade analysis, with a live post that will go up around 1:00 PM-ish EST and get frequently updated to track all of the last-minute trades as they go down, then a slightly later podcast record time with our special edition Trade Deadline Razzball Basketball Podcast up sometime around 4:00-4:30 PM EST. It’s all hoops all afternoon!

With these big changes about to ripple through the fantasy hoops landscape, the biggest news from over the break is probably the most anti-climatic – Carmelo Anthony has been officially shutdown. “3P0 – Shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level!” “No! Shut them ALL down, hurry!” Pretty apt to The Poppycockers shituation, amiright?! We’ve known Melo was about to be Melba Toast sometime around the break, and now the swift gavel of realism has hit (huh? weird metaphor day! I’m rusty OK?!). Langston Galloway, who has probably been picked up in most leagues (and subsequently dropped in some after struggling) should likely be scooped up. He’s not going to do anything too special, but his career-high in shots (19) was in a Melo-less game and should give you some low-TO guard stats. Tim Hardaway Jr. also gets a bit of a boost, but he does absolutely nothing beyond score and trey. Would be a nice, high-minute ThrAGNOF! But those ain’t got no face… So I’m not married to Timmy J at all even if he starts hot with Melo now gone. Here’s what else has gone down since we left for the break:

Oh man, not a fun night for Mark Cuban unless he’s also invested in the Dallas area sports medicine clinics. The way the NBA has gone this year, it’d be a smart investment!

First into the Shark Tank was Tyson Chandler, who sprained his ankle a minute and half in and couldn’t return. He had an earlier ankle sprain and it didn’t cost him any time, so even though it looked bad, ol’ Tyson is no Chicken. Then a mere couple minutes later, Monta Ellis hurt his hip and only played 3 and a half minutes. As Kevin tells us in The Office – “That’s Dallas!” Man, good thing the All-Star Break is right around the corner! Even if both guys say they’re 100%, I see no reason why the Mavs would push em for their game tomorrow night hosting the Jazz. While they’re out, we’re a bunch of preying sharks circling the bloody waters like Mr. Wonderful and Herjavec! And last night it was the hairless ghost (wait, ghosts usually don’t have hair right?) of Charlie Villanueva who piled up some junky stats hitting 9-13 from the field for 26/5/1 with 5 treys. Was awful other than points and treys with 3-6 FT and 4 TO. Big man ThrAGNOF! But for me, the big winner for tomorrow night is Mark Cuban’s own (seriously, kinda seems like he’s his dad – Shawn Marion comp?) Al-Farouq Aminu. Only 19 minutes last night, but hit all the cats for 5/6/1/1/1. Mark Cuban Jr. is only owned in 10% of Yahoo leagues, and in a shortened week where every steal and block will count, he should be one of your first calls on the wire in what should be a spot-start. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

From the depth of 90s video games, crossed with the beastly rancor of Joakim Noah (can you use rancor as an adjective? is that even the right part of speech?!), it’s the Goromotaro! An epic performance of 20/20 needed a name, but ever since Joakim pulled off a few back in the day, he hasn’t scored 20 points in like… a million years. Hasn’t yet this year! Shocking he’s scored double digits in only 2 of the past 19… But I digress…

The way things have looked the past month, Goromotaro might need a name or image change to feature Hassan Whiteside! Dude is hitting the glass harder than Cheech at a bong-only party. 24/20/0/3/2 last night for his first career Goro. Not that he hasn’t been close! Had a 23/16 and a 16/24 in there. Unreal! There’s only been 23 20+ board games this year, and Whiteside is two of them and has only 8 starts! Whiteside has the 7th Goro this year (the others belonging to Kenneth Faried, Zach Randolph, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Pau Gasol and… you ready for this…? Jason Thompson!), and as good as those guys are (well, minus Thompson), I’d put good money on Whiteside being the first with multiple. He’s also 73% from the stripe his past 13 games! Getting a little unreal out there, and the 4 TO last night were very fluky – especially one on an inbounding violation that was totally Norris Cole‘s fault. Cole tried handing it back to Whiteside after he tossed it in during an odd, weird lack of awareness that cost the Heat the game! I’m pretty sure it was a play ran to perfection from the Larry Drew playbook… Here’s what else went down last night across the NBA:

Man, who woulda thought the Bucks without Brandon Knight (sat with minor injuries) would’ve been able to beat the Raptors last night?! I figured that big Jurassic Park reboot trailer during the Super Bowl would have pumped the Raps up! Well, I guess Canadians don’t really watch the Super Bowl, so their loss!

And while the 82-75 win was a defensive grinder, it didn’t slow down that impressive O from The Duchess K Middleton! 25/9/1/3/0 for Khris Middleton, hitting 10-17 FG (3-4 3PTM 2-2 FT) and only 1 TO. All that with Jorge Gutierrez as the fill-in starting PG! It didn’t matter though, since they had a JB waiting in the wings as well… But more there later. With 25 Pts last night, K-Midd is 17+ points in 4 of 5 and 3+ treys in 4 of 5. And multi-steals in 4 of 5 for good measure as well! Even though a lot of the counting stats are lower than the breakout last year, so are the minutes and the %s are much better. But my favorite leap is 1.0 steals in 30 minutes last year to a whopping 1.5 in only 26 this year. The Duchess is secretly a world-class thief! I think Keira Knightley could star in that movie. Larry Drew could be the evil drug lord! Maybe Ersan Ilyasova can be a Turkish arms dealer. The script is writing itself! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Man, the question posed in the title there is a real toughie… I need to make a pros and cons list. I mean, more like a pros and D-league list…

First to last night – how can you call a throw right there?! Is Brad Stevens calling plays for the Seahawks all the sudden?! Ugh, enough football, but we’ll tie one more NFL reference here in the open if we can…

The Cavs went into Minnesota on Saturday night, and Kevin Love‘s return to Minnesota wasn’t exactly a metaphorical hug. I love the random ginger at 0:55… He has no idea what to do! He’s like, “boo!” wait, I mean, maybe I should clap? It’s like the end of Air Bud where both the creepy pedophile looking dude and the annoying kid try to call for the emotionally conflicted dog. Anyway, Cleveland got to see both of their #1 picks from the last two years, and spoiler alert! Andrew Wiggins did better. A cool 31/1/1/4/0 on 14-25 shooting and absolutely no issues with Kevin Martin back in the line-up. And still no Ricky Rubio, who is back tonight! All of Wiggins’ damage done with recent-signee Lorenzo Brown playing all 48. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s “other” former #1 pick Anthony Bennett played 13 minutes of nothingball. 0/1/1/0/0, and as we mentioned on the Pod with Andy Behrens the other week, Draymond Green went in the second round of that draft! Hopefully Kevin Costner had nothing to do with this Cleveland team’s Draft Day. That movie bombed harder than the Manziel pick! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

I imagine Kyrie Irving at tip did something similar to that right there! Off 38 points Tuesday night, Uncle Drew went bonkers against the Blazers for a season-high 55 yesterday, with LeBron James in street clothes. Klay who? 55/4/5/2/0 on 17-36 FG (11-19 3PTM 10-10 FT). That’s 17 treys and 16-16 FT the past two games, for a ho-hum 93 points. That’s a H2H matchup winner right there! As I mentioned in early December, I was fully buying in. Sure there was the horrifc Cavs playoff sched to consider, but that was mad early in the year. Now it’s time to reconsider. At that point I was saying second round value was legit to pay, but I think you might be able to take a sucker for first round value, especially if they’re a points whore. Most metrics have Kyrie at around 7-8 in overall value, and if you can swing that into something that fits the playoff schedule a little bit better, now is the time when the proverbial iron is hot. So while Kyrie is calling out Lillard, he’s also calling out top-seeded fantasy teams to sell him off like the hot bubble stock he is. Investing jokes! We’re an ecletic mix of references here at Razzball Nation… Here’s what else went down last night on a busy Wednesday of fantasy basketball action:

What is going on out there?! Stupid Northern teams… I can’t remember Toronto ever canceling games because of snow!

Both Portland at Brooklyn and Sacramento at New York ended up getting postponed as this foreign concept of “snow” began “falling” from the sky. These New Yorkers have no idea what goes on outside of their bubble! Damn, we got snow, we got fires canceling games like in Mexico City last year… Game of Basketball: A Song of Ice and Fire. Well, of course there’s the game missed from all those players, but the blizzard that’s rolling in could cause another postponed game or two. Basketball all the sudden is as dependent on weather as those “other” sports… Once all of the inclement weather has blown over and all the games that need to be cancelled have been nixed, then we’ve got the big variable – rescheduling. And for H2H leagues, that could mean some big changes to the H2H playoff schedule. We already know Kings/Nets will be March 3rd, but Blazers/Nets will be April 6th, the first Monday of week 24 if your playoffs go that deep. Somehow both were scheduled right before and after the standard H2H playoffs! NBA schedule makers are fantasy players… But any further reschedules could become impactful if they happen March 16-April 5 (weeks 21-23). It will throw Slim’s incredibly awesome playoff breakdown for a loop! Seriously though, that shizz is gold… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball:

Hope we all had a good week of DFS NBA. Last weekend the article did just ok. If I remember right, last weekend was weird. The stud players really didn’t hit value and the value guys didn’t come through. Let’s not dwell on the past. Sunday night we have a bigger than normal nine game slate. Think that has to do with what is going on next Sunday. I also have a little piece of DFS news linked here. Good luck in your games and let’s win a little coin.

Little was known about the severity of LaMarcus Aldridge’s thumb injury when he missed Wednesday’s game. I was texting with Razzball’s own JB about the Blazers and JB voiced his concern that Aldridge would “be out a while.” After undergoing another MRI on Thursday, the Trail Blazers announced that Aldridge would be out 6-8 weeks with a torn ligament in his left thumb.

Is JB some sort of psychic? As his college roommate, I can neither confirm nor deny that, but what I do know is that owners will be hard pressed to replace Aldridge in their lineups. He was averaging 23.2 ppg, 10.2 rpg, and 1.2 bpg. Those are some pretty huge shoes to fill.

The Blazers are already shallow in the frontcourt, since Robin Lopez and Joel Freeland are also ailing. As a result, they will use Dorell Wright and Thomas Robinson more at the four. Wright started Wednesday against the Suns (15 points, 5 assists, 3 threes), but then Robinson started Thursday’s game against the Celtics (9 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks). It’s unclear who will start or if coach Terry Stotts will play matchups. Unless someone gets the majority of minutes, Wright and Robinson will eat into each other’s playing time, limiting their fantasy appeal.

To make matters worse, Nicolas Batum left early in the third quarter with a wrist injury. An upcoming MRI this weekend will reveal more information, but this could be even more devastating to the Blazers.